Neither Time Nor Place
by Chridhe Flur
Summary: During their separation following Culloden, Jamie and Claire share realistic dreams. This is one of them.


The dreams come to me rarely, only when there is the greatest need. It is as if somehow, he knows I can be strong between them, as a result of them, for a long while after the reassurance.

Boston is about as far from Scotland as it can be, and 1960s Boston would make many an eighteenth-century head spin with its 'backward' ways, coquettish fancies, and avant-garde customs.

Despite how stark the contrast between Jamie's world and my current one was, it seemed not to matter in the communication of dreams. The centuries and miles between us seemed irrelevant in to the transaction.

This time the sadness was mixed with yearning, as it always was, and incredibly overpowering joy. I always knew this wasn't a permanent state of affairs somewhere deep within my subconscious, but at every point I no longer cared-reaching only to grasp, as a child for sweets, with greedy fingers caring for only now, and not a second before or after. The now was too precious to fret over anything else.

This dream begins with an expression of affection I often ache for: the feeling of hands used to rough work ever so gently stroking my hair.

'You must wake now, mo nighean donn,' he murmured in my ear, both the warm air from his speaking and the stubble on his lips sending a tickling shiver throughout me.

In such a case as this when we were in the same time and place, I would often fuss and murmur unintelligibly, 'Just a few more minutes,' and groan in protest, shoving my head under a pillow if we had one, or whatever was within arm's reach if we didn't.

In such cases, Jamie would chuckle and more often than not snuggle up flush against my body again, keeping me warm and safe. He would happily humour my protests on most occasions, but he very rarely slept again while waiting for me to get up. It was usually his subtle alertness amidst the casual posture which truly pulled me from the Land of Nod and forced me to get up.

Some days when I pulled such a trick Jamie would nibble my neck, my ear, and trail soft, teasing kisses across my face until he just barely reached my lips. This playful game often woke me fairly quickly, and I would grasp his face in frustration and press his lips firmly against mine, tired of the torture. Sometimes his hand would creep to my breast, and stroke it softly, or to my bottom.

These situations led almost assuredly to his hiking my nightdress up and rolling me under him, or pressing against the back of me into a stack of spoons. It was hard to decide which of those two I liked best; I think, now, that it was just HIM, in every way, which I liked best, just having him so close to me, filling me.

On other days, rare days, Jamie didn't stand for my unhappy murmurs. Usually when such a circumstance arose we had commitments to keep, we were in imminent danger, or someone urgently needed my medical attention.

Today, however, when I felt Jamie's hands in my hair and his voice in my ear, I knew we could do whatever we wanted to without fear of interruption. Except if one of us actually woke up, that is.

I turned to him beside me quickly in our nest of quilts in the tent and grasped his face between my hands, pressing my forehead against his and staring into those cat-like blue eyes.

'Jamie.' My voice quavered.

He grinned crookedly, in that involuntarily charming way he always hand, and spoke again, softly. 'Aye, Sassenach?'

'You're here, aren't you? With me again? Aren't you?'

'If ye mean have I lost ye, then aye, I have. These dreams are our only time together now. I ken how precious they are, that I do.'

I sighed in relief and pulled him tight against me, struggling back tears, knowing how temporary and short our 'visit' might be.

'Are ye well, mo luaidh?' he asked softly, fingers still entwined in my messy mass of curls.

'Yes, I suppose I am.' I sniffed once, to clear my nose, and continued. 'As well as I can be without you by me, that is.'

I pulled back enough in time to see his eyes glimmer with unshed tears.

'Has the year been difficult so far for you?' I asked him. We were just in the new year, and it had been several months since we'd dreamt together.

'It is always difficult,' Jamie began, and I noticed the slight change in his demeanour. The leader and caregiver in him made itself starkly apparent to my eyes, and he spoke with love and pride of Jenny and her new baby, Fergus' settling in at Lallybroch, and Ian's success at potato farming-not to mention the other members of the community's exploits.

Jamie said little about himself.

'What about you, darling? What have you been doing?'

He grew quiet, and then finally began to speak again.

'As ye see me here now-I dinna look this way when I'm no' asleep. I mean to say tha' ye see me as ye remember me. Now I have a long beard and a mass of tousled hair, and have missed far too many Saturday baths. D'ye ken?'

I thought I did, and nodded thoughtfully, wondering what that small detail-seeing him how I remembered him-meant. But there would be time for that later.

'I don't know how much time we have,' I admitted, my voice breaking as the words came out. During the entirety of our conversation, we hadn't let go of each other, and Jamie drew me closer.

'Aye, we never do,' he agreed with a lace of bitterness just edging his voice. 'What shall we do wi' the rest of it, mo nighean donn?'

I didn't hardly have to think to know.

'Make love,' I breathed. 'We should make love.'

Jamie's mouth crinkled into his easy smile. 'Aye, tha' is a worthwhile occupation.'

Our mouths met again, gently at first and then more urgently. Jamie's hands roved about me, reacquainting themselves with all my curves and corners which were known only so well by him.

'Claire,' he moaned softly into my mouth.

And then we were both tearing our clothes away, each other's clothes away. No half-undressed tryst was this to be. Our bodies needed to feel each other completely.

The heat of his body always amazed me, and I basked in it in the chilly tent, even beneath our quilts. We kissed wildly, his hand supporting the back of my head.

When I reached to touch his cock as he was stroking me, he murmured, 'Nay, Sassenach; inside ye,' and I pulled him on top of me and helped him inside me.

We both let out loud sounds of pleasure at being filled and filling, breathing heavily from even that.

Our lovemaking followed the same pattern our kissing had; soft and gentle and full of tenderness at first, and then more passionate, urgent, wild as we progressed.

It became frantic. I needed him inside me as deeply and quickly as possible, and he needed to be inside me with just the same urgency.

My arms were around his back, keeping his chest flush against me and flattening my breasts. I felt an orgasm approaching and scrabbled at Jamie's back wildly with my fingernails, desperately trying to avoid his scars in my passion.

Jamie pulled back from me just the slightest bit to take my nipple in his mouth, and I fell, flushed and crying out, holding him against me.

I felt his groan fall against my nipple. Feeling me move around him made him want to let go, but he also wanted to hold on and draw out the pleasure.

'Jamie,' I cried out, as he moved strongly within me again. My legs wrapped around his waist, and he buried his face in my shoulder and hair and held back nothing, rutting between my legs with the utmost passion.

He gasped, then moaned; I felt his heart fluttering wildly in his chest as he drove into me a few more times, and then held himself deeply inside me.

I drew him down upon me, ignoring his fussings of being much too heavy for my 'slight' frame, and basked in our closeness.

'Stay here, silly thing,' I muttered into his ear, stroking his hair. Eventually we rolled to face one another, and whispered things we missed about each other until we cried, and then how much we loved each other until we cried again.

Then we slept, knowing full well the possibilities of waking to an empty bed in our real times and places.

I did awake, hearing the front door slam as Brianna came in from getting the special coffee she always had in the mornings.

I sighed and sat up. There were slight marks on my arms, which could be attributed to sleep or to a lover's passion, and a mark on my breast which could well have come from Jamie's roving mouth. I wondered how such marks could remain from a dream, and rose to start he day, as I had to, without him.


End file.
